With more than 47,000 cases and 2,535 deaths, Indonesia is the most affected country in Southeast Asia, but the new coronavirus has been more benevolent in Bali, where restrictions have also been relatively lax.
Local authorities estimate that, since the travel restrictions were put in place in March, around a thousand tourists decided to stay on the island, the majority from China, but also from the United Kingdom, Canada, the Netherlands, France or Argentina. .
At the start of the pandemic, European authorities advised tourists to return to their countries because they feared that the healthcare system in developing nations such as Indonesia could quickly collapse if the situation worsened.
However, tourists who got stuck in Bali have passed the pandemic more safely and without the strict quarantines of Spain, Italy, or even Germany.
Federico Brunello, a 37-year-old Italian-Argentine resident Valencia, arrived in Dubai the same day the Spanish government announced the national quarantine on March 13.
As he watched them close borders and put restrictions on travelers, especially for residents of Spain or Italy, Brunello used his Argentine passport, with no entry or exit stamp in Europe, to let him fly to Bali.
“At the last minute, as the airline canceled (the return to Spain), I decided to buy a ticket and come to Bali. I had been to Bali before and as I knew there were few cases here, I saw that it was the appropriate place,” he explains. Efe Brunello, a native of Catamarca, in northern Argentina.
“The first ten days, when the quarantine was in most countries, life here was completely normal. Then began the procedures of washing your hands, taking your temperature …”, says the Argentine, who stayed in Ubud and then in Seminyak, in the south of the island.
Brunello relates that the strictest quarantine was when the Nyepi, the Hindu festival of “silence” was held in March in which the Balinese stay at home and even the internet is cut and that this year lasted two days, one more than normal.
“The first two or three weeks were more difficult because the Balinese saw us as foreigners a little strange,” says the Argentine, who says that they came to reject him in a laundry and in a hotel for fear of the Covid-19.
But later, the locals lost their distrust and today life is almost normal, although with physical distancing measures in businesses and restaurants.
During the months of March and April the island seemed immune, but then infections began to increase and it currently accumulates more than 1,000, including 9 deaths, among a population of about 4.4 million people.
The pandemic has caused a setback for tourism, which accounts for around 50 percent of the island’s economy and receives some 6 million foreign tourists a year, a third of them from China and Australia.
According to official data, the arrival of foreigners fell by 54 percent in the first half of the year, with almost no arrivals in the months of April and May.
The Balinese authorities are trying to regain normality with the reopening of the beaches, which were closed since the end of March and the arrival of local tourists.
The country does not yet have a date to open its borders to international tourism, although it is considering establishing travel corridors with other Asian countries, such as South Korea and China.
Now the problem with foreign tourists in Bali is that they cannot return to their countries due to flight cancellations.
Chinese Jasmine Shi, 29, arrived in Bali in February with the idea of spending about two weeks, but then they started to cancel their flights due to the pandemic and she is still waiting to be able to return to Shánghai, where she is co-owner of a gym .
Shi assures Efe that he became stressed by the cancellations, but then he has adapted to his situation.
“Life is normal in Bali, it is a good place to be in this situation (…) Here you do not feel isolated, there is nature, life is very good,” he says by phone.
The Chinese tourist adds that, although it is not the ideal situation, she has been able to follow the management of her gym online when it was able to reopen.
One of the advantages on the island is that the prices are low: Brunello pays around 250 euros a month for an apartment with a pool near the beach where you can have a leisurely stroll in the afternoon.
The Argentine acknowledges that, although his flights have been canceled, he is happy to have gone to Bali, where he has taken the opportunity to study a master’s degree from a distance and create a website to teach people that it is always possible to travel comfortably even with little money.
“The truth is that for me these three months have been super-productive on a professional and personal level,” says the Argentine, who was born into a humble family and remembers that when he was little he was told that traveling was a luxury beyond his reach.
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